Watch & Learn: TIGER & BUNNY #19

Relativity aside, these guys seriously need to get more aggro. He SLAPPED him? Seriously?

Maverick might say his NEXT ability is to re-write memories, but I
know the truth.

He’s got the power to retcon.

Retcon’s a term from comics fandom. I don’t know if it’s also in anime’s
parlance but, in case it isn’t, the short explanation is that it’s “retroactive continuity." When a serial runs for a long time, continuity
gradually increases in importance. How do all the
stories fit together in a timeline? Does one story contradict another? And so
on. However, creators always want to go back and revise things, either because they’ve
changed their minds, or because they want past stories to fit more seamless
together with current stories. Hence the retcon. A basic example would be how Superman’s origin
story has to be continually retconed so that all his adventures started
only a few years ago (even though the character debuted in 1938.)

I can’t help but see Maverick retconning poor Barnaby’s origin here and,
actually, this episode’s whole dark turn makes me think of retcons in an even more “meta”
way. See, there are certainly pluses and minuses to a series running
continuously for decades on end (instead of, say, capping off after 26 episodes.) I figure one plus is how characters and worlds can be reinterpreted in exciting
and often deconstructionists ways by latter writers. It happens enough in
superhero comics that it’s practically a facet of the genre. As such, I can’t
help but see this twist as being like some iconoclast has come along and turned the long-running, fun
and sun TIGER & BUNNY comic on its head by inserting dark revelations into its
fictional history.

Anybody else feel that way? Or am I just crazy?

Inter-textual ranting aside, I’ve got to say that Barnaby’s got Tiger pegged pretty square about being so self-serving and conceited in this episode. We've established that Kotetsu has his better days and his worse days… but you’d at least figure that
a guy who’s a professional daredevil (essentially) would have a little more spine
about owning up to his own decisions.

Watch this episode "There's No Way Out" below,
decide for yourself and then read my comments on the previous episode here.

I'll match your retcon rant with one of my own. Anime and manga really don't often have to deal with the issue of retconning. Mostly because a retcon is the outcome of having numerous writers on a single comic throughout a year. Manga and anime have one creative team throughout the series run.

The most famous example of a manga retcon would be of Goku. In the original Dragon Ball series, he was just intended to be a funny little boy with amazing strength and a tail. The story was a parody of the story Journey to the West. Bulma is equivalent to Xuanzang, and Goku is based on Sun Wukong, the monkey who joined the trip. Both have tails, use a magic staff that stretches in length, and fly on a golden cloud. There was never originally suppose to be any sort of space origin for him.

It was only after the Dragon Ball arc of the World's Martial Arts Tournament that Toriyama created the Saiyan concept and made Goku an alien who crashed on Earth. Goku's history was retconned from the original design to allow the story to be extended into space. That's why the moods of the stories varied so greatly. Dragon Ball was more often very lighthearted fun, but Dragon Ball Z era plots were always more serious.

I still contest that you don't need to remake Superman or Batman's origins. Even now they are trying to change Superman into Batman. They seem to believe that you make Superman more relatable by making him dark and tragic. Now, not only is he an orphan from Krypton, the Kents are also suppose to be both dead. Even now, DC Comics is pushing the whole theme of superheroes are hated, thus stealing the theme from Watchmen. IMAGE Comics tried this whole "dark and brooding" heroes bit back in the 90's. It worked for a little bit, but look where they ended up. Most were absorbed by DC, and who talks about SPAWN anymore.

I say look to series such as One Piece. Volume 63 in Japan was released in August. It's first printing was of 3.9 millions units. In under one week of release it sold over 2 million, breaking the one week sales record for manga. The hero isn't some dark brooding character. He's probably one of the happiest and easygoing people in manga.

I still contest that you don't need to remake Superman or Batman's origins. Even now they are trying to change Superman into Batman. They seem to believe that you make Superman more relatable by making him dark and tragic. Now, not only is he an orphan from Krypton, the Kents are also suppose to be both dead. Even now, DC Comics is pushing the whole theme of superheroes are hated, thus stealing the theme from Watchmen. IMAGE Comics tried this whole "dark and brooding" heroes bit back in the 90's. It worked for a little bit, but look where they ended up. Most were absorbed by DC, and who talks about SPAWN anymore.

See, you're basing your starting point off of when you, personally, were first introduced to the characters. The Kents were dead in Supes' original origin in ACTION COMICS #1. Batman also carried a gun and killed criminals in his first appearances. The public hating superheroes theme was a hallmark of SPIDER-MAN long before WATCHMEN ever came out. I don't think much of the New 52 is that much darker than TIGER & BUNNY.

The most famous example of a manga retcon would be of Goku. In the original Dragon Ball series, he was just intended to be a funny little boy with amazing strength and a tail. The story was a parody of the story Journey to the West. Bulma is equivalent to Xuanzang, and Goku is based on Sun Wukong, the monkey who joined the trip. Both have tails, use a magic staff that stretches in length, and fly on a golden cloud. There was never originally suppose to be any sort of space origin for him.

It was only after the Dragon Ball arc of the World's Martial Arts Tournament that Toriyama created the Saiyan concept and made Goku an alien who crashed on Earth. Goku's history was retconned from the original design to allow the story to be extended into space. That's why the moods of the stories varied so greatly. Dragon Ball was more often very lighthearted fun, but Dragon Ball Z era plots were always more serious.

Interesting. That's kind-of the natural evolution of any title, I figure. It gets progressively more serious and complex with time.

I don't have any examples of anime retcons of the superman origin story type, but there are plenty of reinterpretations, particularly in anime series to move transitions. The most obvious one is the Zeta Gundam movie. Kamille is not given a lobotomy and is in fact in perfectly good health at the end of the movie compared to his near comatose state in the anime. More than simply making the movie end on a happier note, it pretty much retcons ZZ Gundam out of existence.

Another is the original SDF Macross movie in comparison to the movie version, Do You Remember Love. The movie brings about multiple changes to the plot like the date of the armistice, making humans the ambassadors of the unintentional cultural exchange between Zentradi and Humans, and also excludes the grim post war epilogue from the original show where humanity's attempt at assimilating all the Zentradi with its Minmay monoculture ends in tragedy. Instead, it just ends with the signing of the armistice.

They removed the Batman using guns because it was hypocritical for him to be using a gun.

The reason Spider-man was hated in his series was because of his massive bad press of one paper being out to get him. Watchmen was more about world hatred of all heroes. It's not even near realistic that these vigilantes should be hated on mass as if they were the mutants of Marvel. That delves into the issue of racism. Modern society consists of the kind of people who actually dedicated Facebook pages to actual criminals. I remember the issues of the "Barefoot Bandit" or that elderly man who was robbing backs. These criminals became almost folk heroes on the net.

Yes, I forgot that the Kents were dead in the original designs. I used to watch those old Superman serials on Nick at Nite starring George Reeves. My only real complaint with the DC's New 52 is just what they are trying to do with Superman. In their official summaries for the series they sold him as "brasher and more brooding". The only line missing to complete the cliche is "this isn't your father's Superman". Though, I do like the idea that they are diminishing his level of invulnerability. Being durable is fine, but they had gone overboard through the years. That's what made writing interesting stories for him so impossible. No villain was ever a credibly threat. DC's line up is just littered with ubermensch. It's far more interesting having the underdog pull out a victory over what seems like impossible odds.

There's also the issue of wiping out the marriage of Lois and Clark. Comics are basically teaching readers that true love doesn't exist and every marriage fails. Now, the biggest marriage in comics is Reed and Sue Richards, and that's just wrong.

The issue with Dragon Ball is more an example of trying to artificially extend a series past what it was intended. The mood of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z on are incredibly different. A good example, in the original series Krillin is fighting this big hulking brute called Bacterian during the tournament who uses his own wretched body odor as part of his fighting. Krillin is losing against him until Goku yells out to remind Krillin that he doesn't have a nose, so, he shouldn't be bothered by the smell. Once Krillin realizes that, he easily wins.

I wouldn't describe that as natural evolution. Past Goku in Dragon Ball. I can't think of any other series where the hero's past was altered to to extend the story. At least in anything that wasn't the official story. The Mai HIME/Mai OTOME series are kind of a jumble when you try and compare the manga and anime versions.

Tiger & Bunny pulls from all sorts of superhero sources, so this reveal is in keeping with the "double twist" sort of reveal.

Back when we were in the thick of Jake Martinez and the Orobouros arc, I thought that Jake would be the end of it, then the other members of Orobouros would appear. Uh, that's basically true, but I didn't really see it heading in this direction.

My thought was that the culprit was a shape-shifter or had some ability to change his own form.

Not just comic book sources though, it also follows some pretty tried and true anime tropes. If the only family you have left is a powerful male figure after a tragic past, you better bet he helped make that tragedy happen.

funny I would definitely consider things like one peice and naruto kids shows...but then I would consider most comics (except ones like watchmen which are wonderful and it makes me cry to see you hate on it) for kids to..